I try to avoid MS-DOS too, apart from the version that runs on the HP110, and so on... I don't beleive those are still in production (and if they are, they're not cheap new). And if I buy second-hand equipment, I expect to have to repair it, and I would guess that service information is not (easily) available. Never haard of it, but I sure haven't grown out of Meccano or Fischer Technik.... I truely pity anyoe who regards drinking alcohol, women, sports, TV (at least the TV we get over here), (watching) movies as being more interesting than constructing anything. So do I, but sometimes I need a change from debugging an old machine. I haev never treated anything as just an appliance... -tony

At 09:57 PM 7/27/04 -0700, Fred wrote: the The movie line "Until you've had a good glass of whiskey and a fine cigar, you're missing out on the second and third best things in life." comes to mind :-) That has got to be one of the all time classic lines IMO. But I guess the ones of you that never watch TV or movies completely miss the point. Joe

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, Tony Duell wrote: Yes, but,... The Erector Set by Gilbert had LOTS of little screws, washers and nuts, and a nice solid plug-in electric motor with a multi-ratio open gearbox. So, they changed it to a wimpy battery powered motor, and changed it over to snap together crap. It was so badly screwed up that I think that it has gone the way of chemistry sets, and there will never again be any great mechanics There aren't many.

That may be why I have 4 PERQs. 2 each ;-) Often enough. Or you can always disassemble the microcode yourself. -tony

Care to explain the difference between a (microcode) ROM and an AND tree with the outputs ORed together :-) -tony

At 08:59 PM 7/29/04 -0600, Ben wrote: I would like to create several PCB's See if you can find a copy of Printed Circuits Handbook by Clyde F Coombs, McGraw-Hill 1988. It will tell you EVERYTHING you should ever need to know about circuit boards. It's geared to industrial production not home production so it's not a how to but it has TONs of good technical info including layout info. FYI Clyde Coombs is Editor in Chief at HP in Palo Alta, Ca. You may be able to get your local library to order the book on an inter-library loan. Joe

At 05:33 AM 7/28/04 +0100, you wrote: You're right, they're not still in production but they handle every EPROM, PAL and PROM that I'm interested in so what's wrong with them? The fact that they're out of production just makes them cheap and readily available on the used equipment market. Info for the Data IO 29B is available on-line. In fact, I think it's on Al's site. The Needham unit is simple enough that it shouldn't be take more than a couple of minutes to figure out. As far as repairs go, the only used units that I've gotten that don't work are a couple of Pro-Log units. The Data I/O stuff seems to be built like a tank. All the Needham and Stag stuff also works fine. TinkerToys are wooden sticks that you can put together with blocks and wheels with holes in them at various angles and make simple projects. Very suitable for 4 year olds. Well I know I'm a lot more selective about my TV and movies than the majority of people but are you trying to tell me that there's NOTHING worth watching on TV or movies? What do you have against women, beer and sports? You also overlooked the rest of the list or do you have something against all of them too? So do I but as I pointed out I have plenty of things to hold my interest instead of designing and building $20 appliances. If you spend as much time, money and energy on a Microwave oven (or an EPROM programmer) as you would, say, a PDP-8 then something is seriously wrong IMO. Joe

Joe R. wrote: And some days, very suitable for 46 year olds. I sat at my brother's house one Sunday and designed a network for a client using a big box of TinkerToys. Sometimes a tangible model beats diagrams and flow charts all to pieces. Doc

At 08:43 PM 7/28/04 +0100, you wrote: No but I can pull the card from mine and let you reverse engineer it if you like. Joe

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, Tony Duell wrote: Um... ... Never mind. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

In message <3.0.6.32.20040729163620.00934e70(a)pop-server.cfl.rr.com> "Joe R." <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> wrote: Apparently the ELNEC programmers are very popular in mainland Europe. I'm guessing the fact that they're "Made in Slovakia" has something to do with that. Yes I did flip my Preprom over to find that out... It works, it was cheap, what more could you want? ?165.09 according to the invoice, with a 3-year warranty. It's heavy considering its size - I guess the case is pretty thick. I think BK Precision rebadge some of the ELNEC programmers - they seem to use the same software (PG4U). The only reason I actually *bought* an EPROM programmer was because I had no end of trouble getting my DIY programmer working. After three weeks playing with the hardware and the firmware, I gave up and bought the Preprom. At least it wasn't as expensive as the programmers Farnell were selling at the time (Micromaster, Dataman48, Dataman S4, GALEP4, ...) Stuck with the normal BBC and ITV channels here. ?40 a month is a bit excessive for what basically amounts to kids channels and imported American crap. About the only channels I ever watched regularly were the Discovery channels (and occasionally National Geographic). Then again, there's always the Internet and friends with video recorders. So far, I reckon I've reinvented the wheel at least a dozen times. I've built an "Acoustic Probe" from an EPE article, a 198kHz frequency standard to calibrate my frequency counter and oscilloscope (EPE again) and my homebrew 6502 system. As far as the 6502 system is concerned, I've built: - 1x 6502 CPU / RAM / ROM card. 32kbyte RAM, 16kbyte ROM. - 1x RS232 interface with 16C550 UART. Perfect for hooking up to a terminal. What could be more fun than playing with EhBASIC (one of Lee Davison's creations, a 6502 BASIC interpreter) on a rainy Sunday afternoon, playing the original version of "Star Trek"? Actually, that's not a bad idea... - 1x Eurocard (DIN41612 Form C, 64W) backplane with ATX power connector. After building that, I never want to see a sheet of Press-n-Peel again. Ever. I spent four hours cutting short-circuits with an Xacto and repairing broken tracks with bits of wiring-pencil wire. Never again. Next on the list: - IDE hard drive interface - 80MB.. *drool* - 40x24 video (Teletext) and I2C - 6502 bus -> HP analyser interface. Perfect for spying on a misbehaving computer. I would buy an ICE, but I'm a cheapskate (and none of the commercially available ICEs seem to support the WDC opcodes). Of course, this is well off topic since my 6502 computer's oldest component is the CPU.. which carries a 1999 datecode... [fx: flameproof clothing ON] Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... Hard work never killed anyone but why take a risk?

Very different in the UK. Most of the stuff on the standard 5 channels is terrible, and from what I've seen, the digital/satellite/cable channels aren't much better. Serously, I'd much rather be using a soldering iron... They're actually quite interesting books. 'The Voice of the Crystal' is about making crystal radios using _no_ commercial electronic components at all. He makes his own coils (trivial), detector (using a similar design to the ones made 100 years ago), variable capacitor (suprisinging hard to make, acually), headphones (both magnetic and crystal, the latter using the peizo-electric element from a cigarette lighter), etc. 'Instruments of Amplification', IMHO is the more interesting book. He describes how to homebrew amplifying devices (not the circuits, which any of us could make). The 'microphonic relay' (electromagnets coupled to a carbon microphone-like thing), diode and triode valves (using filaments taken from light bulbs, in case you're wondering), transisotrs (point-contact ones using the crystal from a germanium diode, copper oxide ones made the hard way), and so on. Now, to be honext, the devices are terrible. If you want a triode to use, go and buy am ECC83 / 12AX7. If you want a tranistor, go and get a 2N3904. It'll work a lot better, last a lot longer (his first home-made valves had filament lifetimes of a few minutes, his transistors broke down at a few volts), and be a lot cheaper. But IMHO you'll lear a lot if you read said books, and even more if you try to repeat and improve on the designs. There's probably little point if you've already built at least one programmer, or a similar insturment of similar complexity. But if you haven't, then you should have a go. As I aid, you'll learn a lot, not just about EPROMs... I think the best way to sum it up is to quote from a book written nearly 100 years ago called 'Every Boy His Own Mechanic'. This chapter covers making a simple telephone system " For some years previous to 1914 the constructive instinct and ability inherent in many of us was almost snuffed out because most of the mechanical and electrical things we wished to possess were so cheap that they could be bought ready made. Often the prices quoted were actually below the cost to us of the raw materials, and so we came to think that constructive hobbies were a bit futile. Lots of those cheap things were amazingly good, but some where exasperatingly bad, and the bulk indifferent. Still, we bought the stuff, learned nothing from it, and clean missed all the solid satisfaction that lives for ever in building and contriving and creating Take the ready-made cheap telephone, for instance. How long did it take to get fed up with ringing and asking "are you there ?" Was it really worth the outlay of 15s to 45s? Frankly, no. Why? Because our purchase locked us out from all the subtle mysteries of an ever-wonderful instrument (simple though it may be), and we had been robbed of all the joy of its making. If it failed to act we discovered that we could not put it right. If it acted perfectly, we took the whole thing for granted and soon became bored. But to build up that same installation oneself in the face of difficulties from the homeliest of raw materials, and at last to have it (in litteral fact) voicing our triumph in our eager-listening ears - ah, that is a very different matter! " And that's why I still homebrew stuff.... -tony

[The Voice of the Crystal amd Instruments of Amplification] They are still in print AFAIK. I got mine from Camden Miniature Steam Services in Rode (near Bath, England). I assume you can get them in the States. Thanks, I will take a look. Exactly. It depends. If I think I can build a 'better' device than the one I can afford commerically, then I build it. If I think I'm going to learn something useful, then I build it. Sometimes I do actually buy a modern device, but it has to be well made (that's non-trivial to find these days ;-(), it has to be repairable, and it has to work properly. Quite a few modern devices fall down on all 3 points! You or I probably wouldn't learn much from building a programmer (and actually, the only reason _I'd_ build a programer would be to get one that actually worked on a computer that I owned, as opposed to an Wintel box), but for people who've not got the experience, it can be well worth having a go. Just remmeber that you _will_ destroy a few EPROMs during testing (I am somewhat proud to say that IIRC I only blew up one chip). -tony

On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 05:55:08PM -0700, Tom Jennings wrote: Well, I find it interesting, if for no other reason than I have a pair of 27C512s I'd like to reprogram (new version of BTS6120) and I did not happen to bring my programmer with me. No, there does not appear to be an EPROM programmer for at least 850 miles, if not 3000 miles. I don't know that I'd construct my own here, but I probably could. We have adjustable bench supplies I could use for the programming voltage (meaning I don't have to roll my own); all I need is a way to cycle the address pins and to read/write the bits (since I would really like to verify the parts before and after). I do have several device programmers at home, a full-sized Data I/O unit with about 8 ZIF sockets, a Bay Technical Associates serial-interfaced unit, a B&C Microsystems UP600A, a Promenade (for the C-64), and a couple of SBCs with built-in EPROM programmers (Z-80 Starter Kit...) None of them were small enough to be worth the chance I'd need one down here, so now I'm stuck. One thing holding me back - no way to erase the parts I have with me... I can't even use the trick of concentrating sunlight. :-) I have a couple of "ultraviolet" LEDs with me, but I doubt they are the right frequency to erase EPROMs. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Jul-2004 02:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -71.5 F (-57.6 C) Windchill -103.5 F (-75.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8 kts Grid 039 Barometer 667 mb (11119. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:27:05PM -0400, der Mouse wrote: Nope. (I'd need 512kbit parts in any case). The closest one would probably be Christchurch, NZ... I'll be there in mid-November. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Jul-2004 02:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -71.0 F (-57.3 C) Windchill -99.40 F (-73 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 6.3 kts Grid 029 Barometer 666.8 mb (11127. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

At 02:20 AM 7/29/04 +0000, Ethan wrote:ating sunlight. :-) If they're the high power UV LEDs then they should work. A friend of mine uses those to erase his EPROMs and the erase time is about the same as for a UV light. He puts the LED right down on top of the window so he gets nearly all of the UV energy into the part instead of scattering it everywhere. Joe